Dear President Obama:

I realize that tomorrow is only your first day and that there are about 113 million other people who have advice and recommendations for you. From what I have read of that advice, I agree with much of it and, like what appears to be the tenor of most Americans, I, too, have the patience to be willing to wait to see results. It took us a while to get into this mess, it will take us a while to get out!

At the same time, I do not have a clear sense the you yet have a clear sense of what to do with and for our creative industries. It seems that an Obama White House will bring a level of broad minded sophistication that certainly has been absent for sometime. I trust, though, that this is not a Camelot like comeback of style and “artsiness,” but an expression of the big tent that you and the First Lady extend to include artists and creators of all types. Over the past 25 years, these folks have largely felt on the outside of this tent, as you probably know.

There is more, though, than just being invited to participate. The creative people of our nation have been at the core of much of what has been good about our economy. People designing, filming, making, composing, and writing have built the single largest export industry America has, and, as you have noted, it is only that continued success that will be able to keep us at the top of advances from bio-medical to technologies to the arts.

It has been especially hard for these creators over the past year as they have watched financial arbitrage nearly suck our economy dry. Creators make things. Real things. They do not repackaged loans as securities then again as something else making money at each repackaging. They make movies, music, books, magazines, television ads, websites, photographs, paintings, quilts, poems, buildings, plays, dances, etc. They make REAL things. Their income is from the sale of those real things or, sometimes, someone’s willingness to subsidize those real things with contributions.

For makers such as these to hear billions of dollars being spent to salvage the fortunes of businesses and people who do not make real things is confounding. They only can imagine the many wonderful real things that might have been possible with the same infusion of capital.

As you have discussed your support of green energy initiatives, road building, public infrastructure support (and maybe even a WPA like artworks program?), creators understand you and support you.

It may be that America in 2100 does not make cars or dishwashers. But if there is to be an America that our grandchildren are thrilled to live in, it must be making and creating new and real things that matter to people and inspire our ambitions. Every effort in that direction that you take they will support.

Lets make cars that use the sun, roads that don’t need oil, computers that are in every person’s reach, smart utility free homes, 4D movies, waterless showers, containment fields and whatever else means our connection to the planet and to one another is rehabilitated. This is where creatives want to go, and you, sir, are the first person in the White House who might understand.

Good luck, Mr. President. We want to be with you as you help us all to redefine what it means to be a citizen of this country. Lets fix our mistakes by making sure that we understand how we avoid them in the future. And ask for plenty of help. Its there for the asking.